Meet our Tyte members and share their experience with natural hair. Follow them on their journey's through transitioning and making hair raising decisions. If you wish to submit a journey Click Here

Evon

Okay, so I had a curly perm for over 20 years!! Is that so wrong? Did I commit a crime? I was born in the 60`s! To some people, 3 of them if your counting, it’s a SIN!!

Now I’m not naming names, or even going to spell them as they know who they are (K, G AND C). We don’t work in the same department, but we do work at the same place. I have been told that I must repent my sin in the form of a long, long, long journal. This is just to appease some people, as apparently my original draft of 2 paragraphs was not long enough. I hear you all cry “they want blood”. Yes. Mine!

So firstly if you are going to read this let me warn you that when you feel the need to just nod off or you want to go and do something less boring instead.
DON`T!!!!!!!!! I was up very late indeed and actually missed a re-run of Coming To America. Oh the memories…I can hear it now..The tish tish sound of the TCB Hair Spray.


Now to the start of my journey….


PRIMARY SCHOOL

I wasn’t bald, even though sometimes I got mistaken for a boy, I did have hair. My mum thought I had loads of it!! Everyday she kept trying to comb it up into a pony-tail. (Let me explain something before I go on. There <i>was no pony-tail</i> more of a <i>rabbits stump</i>, even less than that to be exact.) Once she got enough hair, or so she thought, then she would get a brand new bright colour satin ribbon and tie it around my non existent hair into a bow. Then off to school I went.
As soon as the front door closed behind me a gust of wind blew the ribbon right out of my hair!! It wasn`t even that the ribbon was too short or that she didn`t tie it tight enough. The fact was there was no hair for the ribbon to go around in the beginning.
Now the downside to this was having my mum yelling at me when I got home from school for taking the ribbon out of my hair. So to punish me she took away my beloved skipping rope!! <i>She loved them ribbons more than I did.</i>
But the upside was that I had so many ribbons that I tied them together to make a brand new satin skipping rope!!
Us women can always make something out of nothing, and I was only 8 years old at the time!! Clever me!!
How do you make a little girl cry in silence?
Get her big sister to plait her hair……….when she has no hair at all!!
Now I am the youngest and the quietest of five. But this was a game my mum and my sister liked to play on me from time to time. Yes…. very very cruel!! The words Child and Protection come to mind.


Now I know how flowers feel when they are plucked from the ground.
Let me tell you all something… just because there is NO SOUND, that does not mean there is NO PAIN!!!!!!!!!My sister had taken me to her Hairdressers a couple of weeks before to do something with my hair. It may have been my birthday as my mum was paying for it, I don’t remember all that clearly.
This was to be the start of my first perm!!!But there was a problem………
They wanted my hair to grow a bit more as there wasn`t enough to go around the rollers. I do remember that when we got back my mum was really angry. I`m sure she had a mental picture of curls and ribbons. OH THE HORROR!!!!


PERMS IN…RIBBONS OUT!

I felt like a grown- up. No more ribbons…Life is good again!! Birds are singing, the sun is shining!!

The Reason:- Picture Michael Jackson doing his spins in the 70`s/80`s and the wetness flying out of his permed hair. Also the grease and oil mixture that would always be around that brown and beige TCB spray bottle.
The amount of that spray my mum put into my hair soaked that satin ribbon right through. It just wouldn’t tie around anything, let alone my new hair.

SECONDARY SCHOOL

I had a little afro and I was proud of it!!

Bring out the afro combs……….

Plastic ones in different colours to match your outfits… Accessorize!!!
The wooden ones that would hurt your scalp if you dug too deep…. Ouch!!
But best of all…THE ONES WITH THE FIST AT THE END OF THE HANDLES!
Black power…. NO WAY!!!!…………….AFRO POWER!!!!

I can hear you all mocking, but you all know, you probably still have them to this day. Sticking out of your “fro” as you skip and walk along the streets today!
The reason for this is???????……………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………The reason escapes me.

I was getting into clubs even though I was under age. Remember dancing round your handbag? Well I was dancing round my afro comb!
Where I went my Afro and my comb followed.
I was gifted with the power of “The Fro”.

I found a new hairdressers that never called it “gerry curl” or Curly Perm”.
They went by the name “Wet Look”. Very apt.

Now if your feeling slightly or maybe a lot bored… I’m sorry, but this may make you laugh.

A TRUE STORY

I was a bit drunk…oh ok then...very drunk one night coming from a club at around 2:am in the morning with friends. It was very cold as it was autumn time. To get home we all travelled by night bus. I needed 2 night buses to get home. I leaned against the glass as I sat down on the 1st bus, leaving a large imprint of grease, hair and oil on it. I got off to wait for the next bus that would then take me home. When it came I got on and sat down and saw on the glass a large imprint of grease. Now being drunk and a bit confused I thought this was my 1st bus. So I got off and stood and waited in the cold for my 2nd bus. Not realising that the bus that just left was it!!!!
Waiting in the cold for so so long sobered me up a bit just enough for me to realise what had happened. I eventually got home in time to go to college that same morning! College started at 9:am!

Cheered up? No? Well then..Too bad, Back to my story.

INTO THE REAL WORLD

Wet look…not for me.
Curly perm…yes.
What I needed to do was to try and use less spray and more hair grease. Once that was sorted I then had more options on my hairstyles, as my hair started growing like crazy!

Whenever my mum saw my hair she always seemed to look disappointed.
Must have been because there wasn’t a ribbon in it!!!
I had the “Anita Baker” haircut. Remember the Sweet Love video? How her hair was? It was “short back and sides, with a lot of volume on top.”
The “Bob”. For those of you in your late 30`s I bet your all singing and remembering the 80 soul tunes…
* Gwen Guthrie…Ain`t Nothing Going on But the Rent
* Colonel Abraham…(his shaking shoulders)…Trapped
* The Mac Band……….Roses are Red.

But the greatest tune and still going on……… ”I Found Loving”. I think it was by the Fat back Band. The DJ always turned the music down at the point where you sang “...baby…wooo ooohhh……whadyagot…..i found love.” Just so you would hear everyone singing it in the club. Great times!!!!

There were times when I went into my Hairdressers to re-do my perm and found I was always the 1st to arrive but the last to leave.
It always took so long to do that I would lie about having to be somewhere important at a certain time just to get done quicker.
Oh please…. We’ve all done it before!!

I always thought the perm was a lot easier to manage than if your hair was relaxed. That’s why I was always changing my mind about what I wanted to do with my hair. My poor brain couldn’t take all this confusion.


THE CHANGE

There was no exact or 1 reason why I changed out of my perm to kinky braids. But there were a lot.
* Going to a friend’s birthday party. Main topic of conversation…my hair!
* Old school friends that I never recognized saying that I hadn’t changed!
* Being 1 of 3 people at my hairdressers with a perm. The place had 2 floors!
* Going into the hairdressers and coming out looking exactly the same!
I can go on, but I won’t.

There were also reasons why I didn’t want to change. I don’t really need to say them because if you haven’t realized by now from reading all of this…well ok.

MY HAIR STARTED TO GROW WITH A PERM. I felt like Samson.
I ALSO GREW UP WITH A PERM. It was my best friend we had fun times together. (yeah yeah I know a very cheesy line!!)

Take away my perm? NO!! NEVER!!

My Worst Nightmare

With my perm gone my hair would no longer grow. I would become 8 years old again and there would be my mum with those shiny satin ribbons in one hand and a comb in another!!
Then I’d see my sister on her chair looking like the devil just waiting to plait my hair with that evil glint in her eye.


NEW AND NATURAL


But I did it. I said a fond farewell to the perm as I washed it out of my hair and saw it disappear down the plughole. No time for tears…. my hair was wet and needed blow-drying!!

Having kinky braids in has met with approval from my mum of all people. A very hard woman to please let me tell you!! When she saw me she actually thought about having it done as well.
Do you know she still has a perm; hers was done the same day as I got my first perm. I would love to see my friends go to her and start going on about her hair. Can you imagine the ructions!!!!!!

I’ve become quite used to having my hair like this now it feels and looks good. It even fits into the 80`s era which is why I love it!!! The first time my friends at work saw it they went nuts!! They took a picture and sent it via email to 1 person. It then spread through the system like a virus. People I didn’t even know were saying they heard about my new hair style.

For that first week my hair was all anyone could talk about, it was bigger than when David Beckham broke his foot before the World Cup!!!
I was a major Celebrity!


Well I hoped you all enjoyed reading this long journey of My Life In A Perm
If you haven’t what a wasted 15 mins you had!!!!!


Before I sign off I would just like to give a shout out to K!!!!
If this does not make you happy then talk to the hand…. because my hair and face just ain`t listening!!!